Live Review: Nothing But Thieves - OVO Wembley Arena, London 10/11/2023
Nothing But Thieves, Everything Everything and King Nun – three five-piece bands, three five-star Friday night performances at Wembley Arena.
Walking down Olympic Way, the neighbouring Wembley Stadium lit up with billboards of 2024’s big shows. Green Day’s poster had their openers dead centre, so Nothing But Thieves, main support in June, lit up both venues simultaneously. First up, the Essex quintet has two nights at the arena.
King Nun have been along for the whole tour, and their chaotic show got the night going. Frontman Theo came forward on the riser to sing ‘Golden Age’ to those who filed in early, the first of seven tracks from September sophomore record ‘Lamb’. “This is our fucking music,” he declared before ‘Do You Know Where You Are?’ The tight-knit performance could be replicated in a room of any size, and should attract more fans to next year’s headline tour. After ‘Hung Around’, the only song not from ‘Lamb’, King Nun concluded their 25 minutes with a wall of noise in ‘Escapism’. Theo ventured forward once more, and Ethan went further still, jumping down to the barrier with his guitar before playing his heart out in the now-empty photo pit. For King Nun, this felt like an opportunity, and they were not sheepish about seizing it with their whole heart. Theo told the crowd “It’s going to be a beautiful night”, and it was already well underway.
By contrast, they made Everything Everything feel calm, but it was another tight-knit five-piece brimming with energy, right from ‘Night of the Long Knives’. Kid Kapichi open the rest of the tour, including the second Wembley show, so this was a true one-off outing with the Mancunians. Frontman Jonathan sang “It was a long time coming” in the opener while bathed in blue light, or “I’ll have a Coke, I’ll have a Pepsi now” in ‘Pizza Boy’ – the latter being £5.30 for 22oz from the bar if you’re parched. Latest single ‘Cold Reactor’ showed that EE have no plans to slow down any time soon, before a trio of ‘Get To Heaven’ tracks, starting with ‘Spring / Sun / Winter / Dread’. Closer ‘No Reptiles’ brought their own wall of noise, showcasing a band with arena ambitions on their own merit. While the whole experience went by in a flash, just half an hour, it was pure entertainment and perfect preparation for the headline act.
Dead Club Radio offered a new twist on pre-gig music, voiced by Zane Lowe segueing from Demob Happy to “throwback” ‘Sussudio’ by Phil Collins. After working through Electric Six, a Rick Astley tease, and Kendrick Lemar’s ‘Humble’, ABBA’s ‘Gimme! Gimme! Gimme! (A Man After Midnight)’ rang out as the lights went down.
Nothing But Thieves got to number one in the summer with ‘Dead Club City’, and first track ‘Welcome to the DCC’ is a bombastic scene setter at 9.15pm, with all five men giving it their all to the Prince-esque track. The crowd didn’t need amping, but ‘Is Everybody Going Crazy?’ from 2020’s ‘Moral Panic’ sent fans wild.
The setlist swerves like this all night, from newer tracks like ‘Tomorrow Is Closed’ to older ones like ‘Broken Machine’ and the sweet ‘Real Love Song’. ‘Keeping You Around’ and ‘City Haunts’ were played back-to-back like they are on ‘Dead Club City’, proving NBT can keep their fans entertained – and showing how they could win over Green Day fans in stadiums.
The crowd took over 2017’s ‘Sorry’. “Maybe I’m defective, or maybe I’m dumb, I’m sorry, so sorry for what I’ve done.” It felt healing after a long day, a long decade of the band, and a long life. But NBT proved their right to be in arenas with no fancy staging and muted visuals. Instead, the focus remained firmly on their blistering rock music.
Each member plays their part, highlighted most by the instrumental jam halfway through, motored by drummer James, which was yet more raucous noise like ‘Escapism’ and ‘No Reptiles’ earlier.
But frontman Conor is the one addressing the crowd, and is thrown a sailor’s hat that sums up his role. It reads ‘Dead Club Captain’. “I’m going to do this once more for 10-year-old Conor. Wembley!” He wondered what his younger self would make of it – questioning his current attire – but after coming there as kids, they’re now fully-fledged rockstars.
Conor is absent for the instrumental jam, but his return kickstarts a new wave of the show. There’s more emotional moments, like the old song ‘Lover, Please Stay’, and ‘Impossible’, a ballad-esque track lifted with the band’s individual flair. You could forget its an arena show, until the crowd was lit up, and the frontman calls out “Hello, happy shiny people”.
‘Trip Switch’, one of NBT’s first breakthrough track, was epic, and right at home in front of thousands. It’s eclipsed by going straight into ‘Futureproof’, so damn huge it could close the set. Instead, it halts abruptly and the lights go out. There’s a moment of anticipation, before it comes back with the best bombastic rock, complete with a killer chorus. It’s a cheap trick, but it’s well delivered. “I love that bit, I’m not gonna lie,” Conor revealed.
The main set ends with ‘Pop the Balloon’, the final track of ‘Dead Club City’. It works in Breakwater’s ‘Release the Beast’ – brought to new audiences by Daft Punk’s ‘Robot Rock’ in 2005 – to form something that sounds like the masked French duo if they went to Kerrang! instead of the club. I love when bands wear their influences proudly, and the audience lapped it up too.
After a brief break, the band returned. “You’re going to know this one, let’s go!” Conor declared, before tearing into ‘Amsterdam’. Several circle pits had been instigated across the whole night, but the 2017 song creates three different ones in the standing area. It’s one of their biggest songs for a reason, and this performance showed that.
Finale ‘Overcome’ brought it right back to ‘Dead Club City’. It can be challenging to make a concept album fit alongside older hits on tour, but the show flowed, and after an hour and 40 minutes, Conor lobbed some scrunched up setlists into the crowd, and they said their final goodbyes.
All three bands felt genuinely humble, but they each deserved their moment. Some industry idiot might have advised Conor to “stop being so surprised” by a good reaction, but he acknowledged it was “fucking ridiculous” they were doing this – twice! - before thanking those who took them there.
In his shoutout to the supports, Conor hailed the ‘Distant Past’ rockers as “my favourite band in the UK”. “Honestly, we just got a free Everything Everything gig, which is amazing.” With King Nun and Nothing But Thieves too, amazing is in high supply. Good Friday is in spring, but this one time, it got shipped to mid-November too.
Words by Samuel Draper
Photography by Sam Strutt
